This is the first systematic assessment of the work of Richard Rorty - one of the most provocative and influential thinkers writing today. It will be an essential reference for academics and students in philosophy, social theory, sociology, cultural studies and literary theory.

Rorty's fertile writings have challenged not just the assumptions behind the relatively narrow analytic tradition he was first trained in, but those concerning the very nature of social thought itself. The critical articles collected in these four volumes follow the trajectory of Rorty's whole career, from his early work in analytic philosophy to his later writings on pragmatism, continental philosophy, literature, culture, and liberal politics.

The collection is divided into four volumes:

- Philosophy: this volume looks at how Rorty's contribution to the analytic tradition was assessed by his peers at the time and then examines how his later, more explicitly post-analytic, writings relate to traditional philosophical topics such as `truth' and `realism'.

- Post-Analytic Pragmatism: Volume Two examines Rorty's `post-analytic pragmatism'. It begins by considering how Rorty prepared for a shift into this territory, and then looks more closely at the kind of pragmatism he sought to establish; the volume contains discussions of the kind of pragmatism that emerges from both Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979) and Consequences of Pragmatism (1982).

- Politics, Irony and Solidarity provides an assessment of Rorty's account of irony and examines its relationship to his liberal politics.

- Culture, Interpretation and Conversations: this final volume examines Rorty's views on philosophy as a form of cultural conversation and discusses his interpretations or `appropriations' of other philosophers. Of special interest here are his readings of continental philosophers such as Hegel, Heidegger and Derrida, where it is acknowledged that one Rorty's most important contributions to social thought has been to make the work of such philosophers more accessible to readers unfamiliar with, or even hostile to, the continental tradition. Volume 4 concludes with a definitive bibliography, which will be an invaluable resource for researchers and students.

Edited by Alan Malachowski - a leading commentator on Rorty's work - this collection will be the standard reference work on one of the canonical theorists of the late 20th century.

VOLUME ONE: PHILOSOPHY
Introduction - Alan R Malachowski
PART ONE: IN THE ANALYTIC FOLD
The Challenge of Scientific Materialism - Richard Bernstein
On the Elimination of `Sensations¿ - James Cornman
What is Eliminative Materialism? - W Lycan and G Pappas
Varieties of Privileged Access - William Alston
Rorty Revisited - Eric Bush
Is `Eliminative Materialism¿ Materialism? - David R Hiley
Rorty, Materialism and Privileged Access - Arnold B Levinson
Mind-Body Identity, a Side Issue? - Charles Taylor
Scientific Psychology as Hermeneutics? Rorty¿s Philosophy of Mind - John Furlong
Transcendental Arguments I - Anthony L Brueckner
PART TWO: LATER RESPONSES
The Case for Rorty - Daniel C Dennett
Richard Rorty and the Epistemology of Truth - E J Bond
Bond on Rorty on Truth - C G Prado
Truth vs. Rorty - Uwe Steinhoff
Truth Rehabilitated - Donald Davidson
The Question of Realism - Hilary Putnam
What is at Stake Between Putnam and Rorty? - Paul D Forster
Veritable Reflections - Gerald Vision
Beyond Realism And Anti-Realism - Dorthea Frede
Rorty On Heidegger And Davidson
VOLUME TWO: POST-ANALYTIC PRAGMATISM
PART ONE: REFLECTIONS ON RORTY¿S MIRROR TEXT
Rorty¿s Mirrorless World - Michael Devitt
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature - Robert Schwartz
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature - Nino Langiulli
Mind-Body, Realism and Rorty¿s Therapy - Victoria Choy
Philosophy After Rorty - Philip Pettit
Rorty¿s Antipodeans - Kenneth T Gallagher
An Impossible Illustration?
Epistemology Without Foundations - Mary Hesse
Deep Epistemology Without Foundations (In Language) - Alan R Malachowski
Interrupting the Conversation - Rebecca Comay
Notes on Rorty
Rorty and the New Hermeneutics - Frank G Verges
PART TWO: PRAGMATISM REVIEWED
The World Regained - Milton Fisk
Pragmatism and the World - Crawford L Elder
Rorty¿s Pragmatism - R W Sleeper
Afloat in Neurath¿s Boat, But Why Adrift?
A Missing Dimension in Rorty¿s Use of Pragmatism - Abraham Edel
What is the Legacy of Instrumentalism? - James Gouinlock
Rorty¿s Interpretation of Dewey
Of Depth and Loss - Daniel W Conway
The Peritropaic Legacy of Dewey¿s Pragmatism
Just Do It - Lynn A Baker
Pragmatism and Progressive Social Change
Objectivity, Science and Relativism - C G Prado
An Un-Rortyan Defence of Rorty¿s Pragmatism - Kai Nielsen
Pragmatism and the Philosophy of Language - Danielle Macbeth
Pragmatism - James T Kloppenberg
An Old Name for Some New Ways of Thinking?
Varieties of Pragmatism - Robert Kraut
VOLUME THREE: POLITICS, IRONY AND SOLIDARITY
PART ONE: LIBERALISM AS POLITICS
Rorty¿s Liberal Utopia - Richard Bernstein
Richard Rorty, Liberalism and the Politics of Redescription - Keith Topper
Democracy Without Foundations - Ruth Anna Putnam
Cruelty and Liberalism - John Kekes
Liberalism and Cruelty - Eric M Gander
Rorty on Liberty and Democracy - Marker Melkonian
Post-colonial Liberalism - Alan R Malachowski
Deconstruction Pragmatism and the Politics of Democracy - Chantal Mouffe
Strenuous Unbelief - Jonathan Ree
Pragmatism, Social Democracy and Political Arguments - Matthew Festenstein
PART TWO: IRONY AND SOLIDARITY
The Irony of Contingency and Solidarity - Timothy Cleveland
Private Irony and Public Decency - Thomas McCarthy
Richard Rorty¿s New Pragmatism
Self-realization and Solidarity - Richard King
Rorty and the Judging Self
That Most Complex Being - Norman Geras
Solidarity or Singularity? - Nancy Fraser
Richard Rorty Between Romanticism and Technocracy
Liberal Irony and Social Reform - Larry A Hickman
Evading the Subject? - Steven E Cole
The Poverty of Contingency Theory
Irony, State, and Utopia - Daniel Conway
Review Symposium - Terence Ball et al
Richard Rorty
VOLUME FOUR: CULTURE, INTERPRETATIONS AND CONVERSATIONS
PART ONE: CULTURE
Philosophy as a Kind of Narrative - Christopher Norris
Rorty on Post-Modern Liberal Culture
Rorty¿s Cultural Conversation - Frank Lentricchia
Philosophy and the Achievement of Community - R Eldridge
Rorty, Cavell and Criticism
Multiculturalism and the Possibility of Transcultural Educational and Philosophical Ideals - Harvey Siegel
PART TWO: INTERPRETATIONS
Rorty¿s Interpretation of Hegel - N Rotenstreich
The Thought of Being and the Conversation of Mankind - J D Caputo
The Case of Heidegger and Rorty
On Saving Heidegger from Rorty - Charles B Guignon
Deconstruction in Philosophy - H Veatch
Has Rorty Made it the Denouement of Contemporary Analytical Philosophy?
Deconstruction and Pragmatism - Simon Critchley
On Not Circumventing the Quasi-Transcendental - J D Caputo
The Case of Rorty and Derrida
What is the Difference that Makes a Difference? - Richard Bernstein
Gadamer, Habermas and Rorty
Hermeneutics and the Social Sciences - Georgia Warnke
A Gadamerian Critique of Rorty
Davidson in Context - John McDowell
Saving Wittgenstein from Conservatism (Richard Rorty) - Alice Crary
PART THREE: FURTHER CONVERSATIONS
Mirror of America - William Connolly
Confessions of an Old-Fashioned Prig - Susan Haack
The Historicization of Analytical Philosophy - Peter Dews
Postmodernist Relativism - Simon Blackburn
Pragmatism, Pluralism and Legal Interpretation - Michel Rosenfield
Posner¿s and Rorty¿s Justice Without Metaphysics Meets Hate Speech
Philosophical Prose and Practice - Richard McCleary
Feminism and Pragmatism - Sabina Lovibond
A Reply to Rorty